Today: Custard gets all grown up in 6 minutes flat, with a little help from olive oil and Meyer lemon.

Meyer lemon season is almost over, so we'd better hustle.

You can blend them up whole in a tart, bronze slices on focaccia, preserve jars of them in salt. I even stuff their spent carcasses into my water glass for a lazy lemonade, refusing to let any of their perfume go into the trash.

Here's a new way to get your lemons while the getting's good, one I bet you've never had: olive oil custard. Yes.

Though it's called a custard, it doesn't stand up straight and proper the way other custards do -- it sort of mounds and sways. It's thicker than than a creme anglaise, but not so sharp-edged as a curd.

It could stand in for any of these things, but it's in a class alone. Honestly, what it most resembles is a good homemade mayonnaise. As writer Indrani Sen pointed out when she sent this recipe my way, "It's basically a sweet aioli!"

(You were looking for a mayo you could eat for dessert, right? You got it, friends.)

If you have a high-speed blender like a Vitamix (not pictured), you will have custard in six minutes, and it's fully cooked without ever dirtying another pot. (If you don't, there's hope for you too!)

High-speed is how author and strategic advisor Caroline J. Beck developed this recipe, and it's brilliant. You blend up lemon juice, zest, eggs, sugar, and vanilla for four minutes, stream in olive oil, and a smooth, swoopy curd forms.

The eggs will have gently cooked from the frictional heat of the blades, without dampening the fresh, balmy scents of citrus and olive oil.

"I’m unabashed in embracing technology in the kitchen." Beck told me. "I’ll happily use any tool that gets the job done faster, easier, and better. Like a blender that can whip up a perfectly cooked sauce in minutes."

I don't have that kind of blender, but wanted to eat this -- which led to me running my Oster for 20 minutes on ice crusher mode, which almost led to a loss of touch with the living world, and a breakup. It also didn't work and was probably dangerous. So don't do that.

Instead, you can just blend until it's frothy and smooth in whatever ratty blender you've got, then pour into a double boiler or similar contraption and cook, stirring, until it thickens up. It works, and it's nearly as fast as the high-tech way. In either case: if you've ever been afraid of custard, it just got more user-friendly.

Below are a few ways we've been putting this miracle substance to use. You can even freeze it for later in the year, to keep Meyers alive long after they've faded away.

I'm an ex-economist, ex-Californian who moved to New York to work in food media in 2007. Dodgy career choices aside, I can't help but apply the rational tendencies of my former life to things like: recipe tweaking, digging up obscure facts about pizza, and deciding how many pastries to put in my purse for "later."

Sometimes fancy olive oil is the brand new, peppery kind that has a very bitter taste. You might need to switch to another type of extra virgin olive oil with a smoother, milder flavor. Taste a spoonful of olive oil before you make the recipe to see if you like it plain. If it's not tasty plain, it won't be tasty in this dish. (That being said, I personally like the peppery olive oil on salads and savory things.)

Absolutely brilliant - I made this last night when suffering from horrible wisdom tooth pain. Can't get Meyer lemons where I live so chose orange instead and, once the custard had cooled down, added dark chocolate sea salt chips and it was wonderful. My only comment would be that I think it makes very little for 6 people - I divided the recipe by 3 and it yielded not even a teacup full of custard.

Oh MY!!! This recipe came just a week after purchasing my Vitamix. I was skeptical but indeed it is a GENIUS recipe! It is super delicious & I know it will become part of my repertoire. I served it to some friends with a simple coconut loaf cake & strawberries. It was slathered over everything!

Here's another important point about why it's so healthy. Dr. Selina Wang, of UC Davis confirmed that because the olive oil doesn't go over 175 degrees and only is exposed to heat for about 2 minutes, the olive oil will still retain all its healthiest anti-oxidant properties and polyphenols. So Kenzi, you can feel good about it everyday!

Oh Kristen, how could you? This recipe is probably worth an extra 10 pounds. Cannot wait to try it. I love custard and all things lemon... I might have to invest in a Vitamix, though I've no idea where I would PUT it.

This is properly genius! I avoid making lemon curd and the like because of all that saturated fat but this really sounds stunning. Perfect too for coeliacs. Thanks Caroline. I just wish I could Pin it!